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i think this is the neal schon/jonathon cain band, not journey.

renny, come on now!! It's not the classic lineup with Perry, yeah, I'll give you that, but Perry aint coming back and Arnel is a good soundalike. The last album did sound like it could have been released as the followup to Raised On Radio. I did get to see the Augeri lineup -- maybe I'll go see this lineup once also as I never got to and probably never will see Journey with Perry live.

chris,

just don't call it journey. perry made journey what it was, without perry it is not journey, it is a journey cover band. if they called it the schon/cain band i'd have no problem with it.

and yes, i know journey existed before perry ( and how many records did they sell, in the time of huge record sales), but it just is NOT the same.

i can think of many bands who could pull it off, but journey is definitely not one them, at least not in my mind.

and yes i bought "arrival", "red 13", and "generations", and there was not one single memorable song in the entire lot.

renny


p.s. and i do not consider myself a big journey fan at all.

It essentially is a Journey cover band, I'll give you that. It's the same situation with Styx, too -- both bands got tired of putting up with their eccentric and demanding frontmen and just decided to hell with them and soldiered on.

I am told that the current Styx is an excellent live band, however.

It is Journey. Steve Perry was a later addition to the band. He was not an original member. I have been a Journey fan since the beginning. I really liked all incarnations. Neal Schon has always been the mainstay and the driving reason for me to listen to each album. Personally, I enjoyed Gregg Rolie's vocals better than any of the other lead vocalists that have fronted Journey. And I have enjoyed all of them. I thought Steve Augeri had a better stage prescence than Steve Perry. "Arrival" was a fantastic album and highy under acknowledged. I think Arnel sounds smoother and less nasal than Perry or Augeri. I had hoped to hear Jeff Scott Soto record an album of original material with the band. And knowing that Gregg Rolie recommended Jonathan Cain to replace him, he was passing the torch for the band to continue. Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain are the driving forces behind the song writing. In my mind it will remain Journey.

Andy

This is a very boring argument. You like it or you don't. You support or you don't. But it IS Journey and it is damn good. Seeing how big they are again, it's obvious many fans are on board with where they're at.
The last album was great and the live DVD is stunning. I saw them in concert and was blown away and the show was sold out 25,000 people. So, you have every right not to support it but calling them a cover band? Weren't they a cover band when Perry joined then? He was singing the older songs and songs the the previous singer (Robert Fleischmann) wrote like "Wheel In The Sky". So, in effect, Perry covered "Wheel In The Sky". Who cares?
Ironic you call it the Schon band since HE formed it!

Augeri was good, but I personally felt he lacked stage presence. He seemed afraid to be up there. He never had command of the audience the way Perry did, IMO.

And Arrival? My first impression is that they tried to make an album that sounded like Perry's Journey. And Schon admitted that later on. Too contrived. Not a bad album, but far from fantastic to my ears.

Pre-Perry Journey sounded nothing like post-Perry; they were almost a prog rock band formed out of the ashes of the Santana band (kind of like how Foghat was formed out of 3/4 of Savoy Brown, though not quite as extreme). I'm assuming the current version is basically a poor imitation of the Perry days. If so, I agree with Renny.

They're maintaining the same sound they had with Perry. The last album, Revelation, would have been the logical follow up to Frontiers. I originally said Raised On Radio, but that wasn't really a Journey album. Perry was calling the shots, producing and even Schon has said he felt like a session player on that one. And songs like "Positive Touch" reminded me of The Pointer Sisters -- not a good thing on a "Journey" album.

Geff:
How can you agree with Renny when you haven't even heard it??? And I don't think Renny has even heard it. C'mon guys.
P.S.
Early Journey was Jazz Fusion/Hard Rock and not Prog. In fact, quite a bit off the 1st 3 albums sounds like the Infinity/Evolution/Departure material-commercial Hard Rock-it was there all along with the lengthy jam pieces.

Steve Perry was a once in a lifetime male vocalist. "Commercial period" Journey would NOT have been the same band without him.

I loved the last album. And the tour was fantastic.

What he said.

IP,

as i stated above, i BOUGHT "arrival", "red 13" and "generations", so YES i have heard the post-perry journey. and i heard the wal-mart thing too, refusing to waste my money on it, i listened to it at a used store.

of those 4 albums, 4 albums, can you honestly name even one song that comes close to anything journey did with perry. better yet, can you even name one song off the top of your head?

steve perry was much more than a singer, he also produced, arranged and interpreted in much different manner than neal schon, or any of his perry clones, does. and there's the rub, perry cannot be replaced and neal schon and jonathon cain cannot accept that.

as for the touring band, and i admit that i have not seen them but have read reviews and talked to a ggod friend who has, they seem to be selling out arenas and halls NOT because of their new material, but because they have become a steve perry/journey cover band. just about everything i've read and heard points to this. of course i could be wrong, and please correct me if i am. my guess is that 3/4 to 7/8 of the new journey show is songs made famous by steve perry.

as for neal schon: he is a good guitar player (not even close to great, but good), i guess, and carlos liked him a lot. has he sold many records without a lead singer to carry him through? i don't think so......8 solo albums, a collaboration with jan hammer, bad english (can you say john waite?), 3 pre-perry jpurney (actually pretty good stuff, but did it sell?) and aberration that is journey today.(3 albums, 1 EP, and 3 lead singers later and still nary a hit).

in conclusion: we will have to agree to disagree, because no one will ever convince me that journey without steve perry, is still journey. they are the schon/cain band, and when perry finally agrees to come back, i'll get my tickets the first day.

respectfully,

renny

journey set list from october 2, 2009 (the latest one listed at setlist.com):

#
Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
#
Ask the Lonely
#
Never Walk Away
#
Stone in Love
#
Keep on Runnin'
#
Change for the Better
#
Lights
#
Still They Ride
#
Open Arms
#
Escape
#
Wheel in the Sky
#
Higher Place
#
Wildest Dream
#
Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'
#
Be Good to Yourself
#
Faithfully
#
Don't Stop Believin'
# Encore:
#
Any Way You Want It


and the show before that: (september 29,2009)

#
Majestic
#
Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
#
Ask the Lonely
#
Never Walk Away
#
Stone in Love
#
Keep on Runnin'
#
Change for the Better
#
Lights
#
Still They Ride
#
Open Arms
#
Just The Same Way
(with Gregg Rolie)
#
Escape
#
Wheel in the Sky
#
Higher Place
#
Wildest Dream
#
Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'
#
Be Good to Yourself
#
Faithfully
#
Don't Stop Believin'
# Encore:
#
Any Way You Want It

In essence, what renny's saying is not wrong. Of course, there's no "right" or "wrong" here, because taste is subjective and not absolute, despite how strongly some of us may feel on a partcular band or artist. And some of us here are very passionate about what we like or dislike.

But I see things from the perspective that Schon, Cain, et al, are working musicians and they need a Perry soundalike to fill halls and arenas and earn their paychecks. Schon has been through divorces, Valory made bad investments and I don't think that some members of Journey are as mega-rich as we might believe them to be.

Like I said before, Revelation is a good album. But my take on it is that it would have been the perfect follow-up to Frontiers. And in essence, they made a "classic Journey" album. And a much better "classic" album than Arrival, IMO.

Generations was too much of a mish-mosh with vocal tracks featuring the other guys (who really aren't good lead singers -- Deen being the notable exception) and didn't bode well for the 30th anniversary tour that saw Augeri kicked to the curb with Jeff Scott Soto just ultimately being a fill-in vocalsist/frontman for the remainder of the tour.

Perry is retired I guess and obviously does not need to earn a living touring and making albums, etc. But Schon/Cain and co. do. And I would go see them live just to hear the classics done in a Perry soundalike style, no more, no less.

Ok we get it! You love Steve Perry! And you can't stand seeing Neal Schon and the rest of the band with anyone else other than Steve Perry in a band called Journey. Hey, it's simple... don't buy the new CD. Keep waiting for the new Steve Perry solo masterpiece or another greatest hits collection to be regurgitated. I'll be at the store the day the new Journey CD gets released. The musicianship alone is worth it to me. Hell, it could be an album of instrumentals and I'd buy it because I think the rest of the band minus Perry are that good.

What does this prove? It has songs from the Perry/Augeri and Pineda eras. Is there a point? Should they not play classics they wrote? What are you getting at here? We'll never agree here, but you give the musical merits no chance whatsoever. As a fan I find that odd.
And, if I recall you said you did NOT listen to Revelation or listen to them live. I was not talking about the Augeri era. I saw them live 4 times with Augeri-he was great, the albums sucked, though there were a few gems like "Higher Place" which is a great Journey song.
I get it-Journey sucks without Perry-how dare they, this a a travesty, etc.

i said i did not BUY "revelation" because the 3 before it that did buy did nothing for me.


and most bands tour to sell their latest product, looking at the above set lists, it looks to me like this band tours to sell their back catalog........with songs sung by.........steve perry!

The one place i disagree with Renny on this is I think Schon is a tremendous guitar player; some of the melodys on his solos are stunning (I tend to notice that because melody was my weak point as a player, my solos sounded a lot like Steve Stevens of Billy Idol with a little Mick Ronson thrown in). However, imo Schon needs a strong partner to shine (Perry, Carlos), From what little I've heard, his solo albums, Bad English (all except 1 song) & late period Journey are all mediocre.